Dustin's Revival
Top of the seventh had come and gone. Manager Eom Tae-hoon turned to face the foreign pitcher who had sought him out.
"Skip. I want to keep going."
"……"
Dustin had thrown 92 pitches and was still rolling—seven innings, zero runs allowed. But this was no situation for a leap of faith. The game hung on a knife's edge at 1–0, and the conventional move, the winning move, was to go to the bullpen. The only thing that gave him pause was the look in Dustin's eyes. Where once there had been nothing but grievances simmering behind an irritated glare, now the man stared straight back at him, a competitive fire burning in his pupils.
"You've already thrown ninety-two."
"It's the knuckleball. My grip's still fresh, and my shoulder's fine."
"Even if you get through this inning, a shutout's a long shot. You still want the ball?"
"I want to pitch as far as my arm will take me."
"……"
The manager exchanged a glance with the pitching coach, who gave a small nod.
"…Alright. But a reliever's warming up, and the moment you give up a single baserunner, you come out."
"Thank you, sir."
Somewhere along the way, Dustin had apparently absorbed the Korean way of things—he bowed his head in a crisp, respectful dip and left the office.
The manager turned to his pitching coach. "Was he always like that?"
"He's got fire in him, that one. When he threw his glove before, that was anger at himself, not anyone else. He apologized to the guys afterward, too."
"That part I like."
What manager in his right mind would turn away a player with that kind of fighting spirit? Sure, it would be a problem if runaway competitiveness poisoned the dugout atmosphere—but it had only happened once, and frankly, Dustin was already miles better than the foreign arms who treated the KBO like a paid vacation and a rehab stint rolled into one.
"What's the pitching staff saying about Kang Hyuk these days?"
"Nothing but good. He gets a little strange now and then, but his skills are real, and more than anything, the kid works his tail off."
"Can't argue with that."
"The whole Dustin knuckleball thing? That was Kang Hyuk's doing too, wasn't it?"
The pitching coach kept the praise coming. "He'll make suggestions I'd never even thought of, and they keep helping the players, so these days everyone drags him along when they throw their side sessions. He's basically staff."
"Mm."
"The head coach isn't too thrilled about it, though……"
"That man's been like that since the day he was born."
Eom Tae-hoon allowed himself a satisfied smile. So the eye for talent runs true after all.
The boy was pure windfall. A high school graduate in his rookie year who simply did his job would have been lovely enough—but Kang Hyuk put up numbers on top of it and carried himself like a model professional, and that attitude was radiating outward through the whole clubhouse.
The team's upward curve might climb faster than I projected.
The manager knew exactly what the fans said about him. A stubborn old mule playing nepotism baseball, blind-faith baseball, too dumb-headed to change. Then why did he keep running Yoon Joon-soo out at third, why did he keep handing at-bats to rookies? Because there was no surer way to separate gold from stone than to feed them experience.
You have to sort out who's riding with you and who's getting off the train.
The fortunate part was that every one of the rookies was playing well. Left fielder Kim Hyeong-jun seemed to have found his confidence at the plate lately, and second baseman Kim Sin-hyung was showing more than enough ability for a backup role. And now Dustin had gone out and tossed a gem when the front office had been weighing a replacement.
Even if we lose today, if I keep Dustin on a short leash from here, the deal pays for itself.
A win would be nice, and if they lost, the blame would fall squarely on him—which meant he'd finally start listening to his coaches. If the hitting cycles of the other batters—everyone except Kang Hyuk—would just climb…… They might not need to wait until two years from now. They might be able to expect results this very season. It was in that exact moment that—
Crack—!
The dull thud of a bat made Eom Tae-hoon look up. The roar of the Jamsil home crowd was still fading from its peak when the lazy fly ball drifted out toward right field and vanished, helplessly, into Lee Won-taek's glove.
"Out!"
Manager Eom nodded at the sight of Dustin roaring off the mound, the eighth inning shut down without a scratch.
The day after the game, my father sat at the breakfast table beaming.
"See? I told you Dustin would pitch well."
"I never said a word, Dad."
"Kids who are good at baseball have it written all over their faces, I'm telling you."
Before the season started, my father had gone on the broadcast and declared that Dustin had the face of a man born to throw a baseball—and then had to endure the viewers' mockery while the man floundered. Apparently it had bothered him quite a bit. With the team he rooted for climbing back to .500 on top of everything, it was only natural that the old man was fired up.
My mother looked less than impressed by all of it.
"Honestly. That blasted baseball talk. Can't you skip it at the dinner table?"
"Oh, come on. It's our son's sport. You may not cheer for it, but surely you can at least let me enjoy it."
"It's because you repeat the same thing over and over."
In an unusually good mood, my father raised his voice at my mother, which never happened any other day.
He's going to get smacked for that.
I kept one eye on my mother as I pulled out my prepared meal plan from between the lovingly spread dishes.
My mother's gaze softened at the sight of me. "Are you sure that's all you'll eat?"
"I'm fine, Mom. I have cheat days now and then."
"Honey, please. For an athlete, eating is part of the training."
It wasn't that I disliked good food, of course. Who on earth turns their nose up at processed snacks and carb-loaded meals? It was just that after the Tutorial, I'd flown straight to the States and built the habit of sticking to my diet—and besides, after a trip to the White Room, the mere act of eating food brought a strange satisfaction all its own. It wasn't much of a hardship.
"They're saying you deserve at least eighty percent of the credit for Dustin's start?"
"Oh, it wasn't anywhere near that much."
"What do you mean, not that much? If it were, he'd have pitched this well from the start. Aah, what a day. If not today, when am I supposed to have a drink?"
Grinning ear to ear, my father headed for the refrigerator—and my mother cut him off.
"Dear. You had a beer just a few days ago."
"Hm? Did I? When?"
"One went missing from the fridge. I noticed."
My shoulders flinched before I could stop them.
Was that... me?
She was probably talking about the beer I'd snagged for the knuckleball blocking drills.
My mother let out a long sigh, and her tone climbed a register. "A man who got an early-stage gout diagnosis at the hospital—and look how he loves his booze."
"I didn't drink it, I'm telling you!"
"The evidence is sitting right there in the fridge and you're denying it? Fine, then Kang Hyuk drank it? The kid who eats chicken breast and grass every single day for his conditioning?"
I had been about to confess—then froze. The son who had kept his diet even through the feast my mother had laid out for the family... had secretly drunk a beer that was bad for his body? The probability of Mom feeling hurt came out to roughly 58,000 percent.
"I didn't drink it. Really."
"Oh, for heaven's sake—!"
Smack—!
"Ack!"
My father, still wailing his innocence without even noticing that my mother's decibels had jumped, took the hit squarely on his backside after all.
I turned my head away with great effort.
I'm sorry, Dad. But you were happy when Dustin pitched well, weren't you?
To the father who had offered up his own backside for the sake of domestic peace, I offered a brief moment of silent tribute.
The Hawks' conditioning room was in full swing.
"Hup!"
A new member had joined our workout crew of me, Romero, and Hyeong-jun. None other than Dustin, whom I'd grown close to just recently. The man who used to use the conditioning room alone had started training with us after his last start.
That said, more people meant the occasional skirmish. Hyeong-jun stumbled through the English words he'd only recently begun learning.
"Cristiano Ronaldo is the GOAT. OK?"
"Nah~. Messi's obviously the greatest."
Dustin waved his hands dismissively, as if the very idea were absurd. Born in Miami, Florida, he wasn't much of a soccer watcher—but he was a fan of Messi from his days with his hometown club, Inter Miami. Naturally, that put him on a collision course with Hyeong-jun, who had publicly declared himself Team Ronaldo complete with the SIU celebration.
"Come on, Kim. Isn't it about time you admitted it? The greatest footballer in history is Messi."
"What are you talking about? The GOAT is Ronaldo, and—Hey, Hyuk. What's the Code of Hammurabi in English? I want to tell him it's written down in there too."
"Messi leads in Ballon d'Ors alone, plus a World Cup title, club career honors, the experts' consensus—he's ahead in every category except total career goals, I'm telling you."
"……"
Crushed under the sheer weight of logic, Hyeong-jun—for whom English was already a struggle—went silent. In the end he bit his lip.
"That's... that's just not cool, though. The short guy being the strongest in the human world..."
"Hey, Hyung. You're crying?"
"What?"
My seniors and I scrambled, flustered by the sight of Hyeong-jun's eyes going glassy. A grown man shedding tears might have looked pitiful at a glance—but I couldn't bring myself to laugh at him. I'd never loved anyone that purely in my life.
In the end, Romero and I stepped in, unable to watch any longer.
"Hey. Dustin. You were out of line. Apologize to Kim."
"...Sorry. I got carried away."
Dustin apparently had no intention of arguing logic with a man mid-tears, and apologized first. Romero, watching this unfold, swooped in to change the subject.
"Everybody done working out? Dinner?"
"Sounds great! I've been mooching off you guys every time, so dinner's on me."
"Nope! A rookie barely makes anything. Save your money, kid. My treat."
"……"
Isn't America supposed to be the land of splitting the bill?
I stared, momentarily stunned, at Romero—who had apparently completed his Korean Culture Patch to one hundred percent—and then everyone's eyes naturally drifted to Hyeong-jun.
"So what are we eating?"
"...Pizza?"
Now everyone's gaze swung to me. Everyone knew how serious I was about my diet. I nodded without hesitation.
"Sure."
"No way. Kang is actually eating pizza?"
Two foreigners and a crybaby wanted it—what was I supposed to do? I waved it off casually.
"Honestly, I've been craving it. It's been a while."
"You're really okay with it?"
"I'm not that fanatical about it."
All I did was skip cigarettes, soda, coffee, fatty and carb-heavy foods, and processed meals, and split my daily intake across six small meals. I was human too. I ate what there was to eat.
Alcohol is... sometimes unavoidable, but still.
"Kang Hyuk cuts the fat off his samgyeopsal before he eats it, you know."
"Oh, my god."
At Hyeong-jun's betrayal-by-testimony, the two foreigners shook their heads as if they'd seen something truly disturbing. After all that commotion, we set off for the pizza place, and Romero broke the silence.
"So what's everyone's favorite pizza?"
"Pepperoni."
"Bulgogi for me."
"Hawaiian."
Every head turned toward me at once.
"Hawaiian? As in—the pineapple pizza?"
"Oh no. Kang! That's an insult to pizza itself."
"...It's not like I love it that much. I just haven't had pizza in ages."
"Then if you could only pick one kind?"
"...Hawaiian?"
"He really does like it!"
In my defense, of all the pizzas, it simply felt the healthiest. The two Americans and one Korean closed ranks instantly and turned on me.
"Don't tell me you like mint chocolate chip too?"
"Weren't you all the ones obsessed with it?"
"Holy crap. All that dieting, and did your taste buds come out wrong?"
"I like mint choco too, though?"
"Romero. You were one of the weirdos all along?"
"Even us mint-choco loyalists draw the line at Hawaiian pizza."
They all stared at me with eyes brimming over with pity.
And I was simply, profoundly innocent.
What's wrong with mint chocolate chip and Hawaiian pizza!?